Living near work? Great idea, in theory
On a warm weekday morning, the downtown sidewalks of Snoqualmie Ridge bustle with well-dressed residents. They enter the bank and grocery store. They walk past a nail salon and a corner spa offering discounts on Botox injections.
They grab their a.m. java, jump into cars and head to work.
Urban-village life.
Marketed as suburbia's answer to sprawl, three master-planned communities on the Eastside were once billed as places where residents could saunter down the street and show up to work a stone's throw from their doorsteps. Nearly a decade later, homes have sprouted like mushrooms, restaurants and salons thrive, and locals gather at coffee shops to catch up on the latest gossip.
But for the most part, urban villages in Issaquah, Redmond and Snoqualmie have yet to provide one missing link — jobs.
Corporate employers have been a critical void.
And without nearby jobs, the traffic woes brought on by more development only continue.
"Having employment anchors in urban villages is often the final piece to be included — and it is the most difficult," said Stephen Filmanowicz, spokesman for the Chicago-based Congress of New Urbanism, which promotes mixed-use neighborhoods as an alternative to sprawl.
Developers blame it largely on the dot-com bust but point to the state's economic upturn as promising.
"We did envision people taking their bikes or walking to work," said Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson, who lives on the Ridge. "We need to create an environment where there is a critical mass of a certain sector, like software or aerospace. Right now, the Ridge doesn't rise to the ideal that most folks thought of."
The developments were pushed during the 1980s and '90s as a return to pedestrian centers of days past. Parks, narrow streets and convenient transit stations were designed to get residents out of their cars. Jobs and retail were supposed to encourage people to work and shop where they live. Essentially, urban villages would deliver what isolated subdivisions hadn't — a sense of community.
In the years since, environmentalists have complained that these often-massive projects have eaten up forests and animal habitat to make way for houses and roads. Longtime residents feel the squeeze as thousands of new commuters jam highways and once-quiet back roads.
While no one specifically tracks how many urban-village dwellers drive to their jobs, transportation data show a jump in the number of cars on the road as more people move there.
From 2003 to 2006, for example, 6,000 more cars traveled on Interstate 90 at the Sunset Interchange where Issaquah Highlands is located, according to figures from the state Department of Transportation. Similar spikes were noted near Snoqualmie and Redmond Ridge.
Redmond Ridge and its companion developments were immersed in litigation for years, in part because the county failed to upgrade Novelty Hill Road, the main link to Redmond. As a result, the mostly rural area was flooded with urban-style traffic jams.
Gene Burrus and his wife, Leah, bought their Snoqualmie Ridge home in 2002. The dramatic Mount Si views sold them, he said, not the "live, work, play" mantra. Burrus makes the 35-minute drive to Microsoft in Redmond every day; his wife commutes to downtown Seattle.
"The Ridge has delivered to some degree," Burrus said, with a new library, grocery store and a Starbucks. "But that dream of a self-contained work environment hasn't come to pass. And I don't think it will."
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Living near work? Great idea, in theory
